


Muppets Meet the (New) Classics: The Terror

by ozymegdias



Category: The Muppets - All Media Types, The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: (Because Crozier is Miss Piggy. That's why.), (Even though it's mostly Muppets), Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Muppet Swaps, Character Death, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Gen, Multi, Other, They wrote Star of the County Down about Miss Piggy and you just didn't realize it., that's a tag now babey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23510338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ozymegdias/pseuds/ozymegdias
Summary: The year: 1846. Seasoned naval captain/fashionista Frances Pigathia Moira Crozier has made her hardest discovery yet: that sailing to the Arctic is no way to mend a recently broken heart. Rising star and war hero James Fitzjames has more than a few secrets up his sleeve. Former colonial governor Sir Sam Eagle is seeking to restore his dented reputation by finding the greatest prize of all: the fabled Northwest Passage. And caulker's mate Cornelius Hickey is, as far as anyone can tell, just here for the food. When disaster strikes, can this ragtag bunch of misfits- along with ice master Gonzo and kind-hearted ship's surgeon Dr. Harry Goodfrog- keep everything from going more pear-shaped than Lt. Fozzie's head?
Relationships: (Goodsir is Kermit the Frog. I don't know how to tag this otherwise but I need to make that clear.), Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames, Harry D. S. Goodsir/Lady Silence | Silna, Lady Silence | Silna/Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy/Commander James Fitzjames, except Crozier is- and I cannot emphasize this enough- played by Miss Piggy
Comments: 17
Kudos: 21





	1. An Ominous Opening

**Author's Note:**

> So, here it is. The fic I've been obliquely joking about/threatening people with since early 2019: The Terror, But With Muppets.
> 
> The origin of this comes from my friend Ska (skazka here on ao3) making an out of left field comment about Miss Piggy as Crozier. The original joke involved Kermit the Frog as Hickey, but as I started developing it way more than necessary (with Ska's permission), he shifted roles to Goodsir, with Hickey still presumably played by Adam Nagaitis. I like to think of the non-pairing of the Kermit and Piggy characters in this one as Miss Piggy throwing a fit in real life at the implication that she can only act as Kermit's love interest and demanding to play a dramatic lead not opposite him.
> 
> My goal here is somewhere between the 90s Muppet-lit movies (The Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island) and the current Muppets Meet the Classics books by Erik Forrest Jackson (which presently include The Phantom of the Opera and Tales from the Brothers Grimm)- the former for the whole celebrated "Muppets and a handful of humans at most" formula, the latter for the piled-on anachronisms, and both for the faithful inclusion of much of the original dialogue (which here falls most noticeably to James Fitzjames). Erik is a Twitter friend of mine and has been about as obliquely supportive of this project as someone who actually gets paid to write Muppet novels and probably can't look too much at it for contract reasons can be, so thanks, Erik, if you can read it after all! You're a gentleman and a scholar.
> 
> For the purposes of this fic, when you're reading it- Hickey, Fitzjames, Sophia and Stanley are still human. There are probably a lot of human extras running around too, a la Muppet Treasure Island, and when she shows up Silna will still be human, but the cast is mostly Muppets.
> 
> And now: it's The Muppet Terror, with our very special guest stars Tobias Menzies, Adam Nagaitis, Nive Nielsen, Alastair Petrie and Sian Brooke! Yaaaaaaaaay!

_In 1845, two Royal Navy ships left England to finally find a navigable passage through the Arctic._

_They were the most technologically advanced ships of their day._

_(That said: the day was 1845, so take that as you will.)_

_They were last seen by a roving band of pirates in Baffin Bay, awaiting good conditions to enter the Arctic labyrinth (to be noted for its total lack of David Bowie in tights with a Tina Turner hairdo). Since the pirates were too concerned about accidentally entering into another genre altogether, they left the expedition well enough alone._

_Both ships then vanished._

_(How’s_ that _for an opener, huh?)_

PART ONE:

**AN OMINOUS OPENING**

_September, 1846_

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, the world’s superpowers were all locked in a race to find the Next Big Thing. It was an age of great enlightenment and distinctly not-great cruelty. It was an age of broadening horizons and shrinking suspicions. It was an age of science and an age of superstition. You could probably even say it was the best of times and the worst of times- but we won’t, because that’s another book entirely.

In this quest for the Next Big Thing, no Thing was Next-er or Bigger than the final frontier: the ends of the earth. No one in the Western world knew what lay in those secret and snowy climes except Santa Claus, and he sure wasn’t talking. Brave explorers set forth with the British Royal Navy’s Discovery Service on five-year missions to explore strange new regions, to seek out new ways of life and unknown civilizations, and to boldly go where no one had gone before.

(They really kicked off a whole genre with that one.)

And in the Discovery Service, there were no brighter stars than the gallant Sir James Clark Ross, captain of HMS _Erebus_ , and his best friend and frequent travel buddy, Captain Frances Pigathia Moira Crozier of HMS _Terror_.

They were a nigh-inseparable double act known in the popular press of the day as The Two Captains. Ross was referred to as the handsomest man in the Royal Navy, and Crozier- Moira, to her friends- was certainly the most beautiful pig. Together, they had mapped out the Antarctic coastline, been the toast of society, signed book deal after book deal, saw themselves portrayed onstage and in popular ballads, and generally had the kind of publicity most people have to get a reality show to pull off these days. It was a match that could have lasted forever.

But all good things must, sadly, come to an end, and while Ross had chosen to rest on his laurels back in England, Frances Pigathia Moira Crozier had made an unhappy (or rather, steaming mad) return to _Terror_ as the second-in-command to Sir Sam Eagle, a onetime explorer himself who was recently coming off of a less-than-fabulous run as governor of Tasmania and was now in charge of _Erebus_.

That was more than a year ago now.

***

_CAPTAIN’S LOG_

_September 14, 1846_

_Everything still stinks. I’m surrounded by Arctic wannabes and have to talk to myself if I want to hear_ moi’s _own voice. Deadly still makes a fantastic Cosmo, though._

The pink pom-pom at end of the pen fluttered very slightly in the still of the wardroom of HMS _Terror,_ making its owner frown suspiciously at it.

“ _Really_?” said Frances Pigathia Moira Crozier. “Now there’s a draft in this dump too?”

With a scowl, Moira slammed her pink-plush-covered Very Secret Diary shut, dropped the pen beside it, and reached for her Cosmopolitan.

There was a little rap on the wardroom door.

“What do you want?” Moira groused.

“Begging your pardon, Madame,” came a chillingly low and perhaps rather eerie voice. “It is only I. I have brought Gloria Estefan back from his promenade on the deck.”

“Oh!”

Moira sat up a little more and tried to look casual as the door slid open. In came the gruesome yet chic figure of her personal steward, Uncle Deadly, a grimacing blue dragon who currently had an excessively cute penguin nestled against his chest in a floral-patterned Baby Björn and squeaking excitedly.

“Oh! Oh, come here, my little baby. Mama missed you,” Moira cooed as she hurried over to pull the bouncing baby seabird out of the carrier. Gloria Estefan- the only Spanish name Moira knew- was perhaps the only happy souvenir of Moira’s last voyage to the Antarctic, and woe to anyone on _Terror_ who forgot it. Deadly endured the indignity of this display with only the most perfunctory of sighs.

“You’ve been asked to have the Erebites for dinner, Madame. Sir Samuel is expecting you.”

Moira looked up in excitement.

“I didn’t know we still had enough of those! Go tell Delbert to go get the oven preheating. I’ll have the cheese- you know how I feel about the sausage-”

“ _Erebites_ , Madame. Not Bagel Bites. And we’re having them for dinner as in having them _over,_ not eating _them_.”

Moira tipped her head back and groaned with such force that Gloria Estefan hopped out of her arms and waddled away to go chew on the tassels of her seat-cushion before she had the chance to drop him.

“ _Those_ losers? Again? Why can’t Sam learn to take a hint, huh?”

“Now, now,” said Deadly. “That doesn’t sound like the Moira Crozier I know.”

“Maybe you’ve been talking to a different Moira Crozier, then,” Moira grumbled, “because this pig isn’t down for another round.”

“You haven’t had dinner with them in months,” Deadly reminded her. “You can’t keep giving him excuses.”

“Oh yeah?” Moira crossed her arms. “Tell him I can’t miss my Duolingo lesson for tonight or the owl is gonna come for me.”

“You told him that two weeks ago.”

“I have to finish a binge-watch-”

“That was last week.”

“I, uh, have to wash my hair.”

“You did that last night, remember? You’re not supposed to do it more often than once every two days. Think of your natural oils and shine,” said Deadly, holding two furry blue fingers in her face for emphasis. “Face it, Moira: you have to deal with this sometime.”

“Ugh,” said Moira. “ _Fiiiine_. But that doesn’t mean I have to _enjoy_ it.”

“Oh, come now, Moira, do cheer up,” said Deadly as he began gently guiding the disgruntled diva into her cabin. There wasn’t a lot of room in there, thanks to the stuffed-to-the-gills wardrobe she had insisted on bringing along, but Deadly, her faithful steward for two expeditions now, knew better than to suggest greatness pack light. “You used to love these sorts of soirees.”

“What I loved was the _attention_ ,” Moira wailed, flinging herself face-down on her luxuriantly upholstered pastel-pink bunk. A few fat little cushions tumbled to the floor. “Not playing second banana to someone whose big break was looking after a pile of bird poop! Now everyone listens to _him_ instead of _moi_ -”

“Technically,” Deadly said dryly, as he pulled out one of her favorite magenta full dress jackets and a matching pair of rose-gold epaulettes embroidered with little lipstick kisses, “you’re playing second banana to Sir Sam. Fitzjames is _the spare_.”

“Yeah, like a spare ten pounds of holiday-season weight.” Moira muttered. “Shows up when you’re trying to have a good time, spoils it, and won’t go away.”

In addition to Sir Sam Eagle’s fearless leadership in the expedition’s flagship, their bosses back in the Admiralty had decided to hire him some backup in the form of one Commander James Fitzjames, who served many of the day-to-day acting functions of running the ship and gave Sam the opportunity to do more of a father-to-his-men schtick (leading Sunday services, teaching some of the younger ship’s boys how to shave- impressive for a guy with a beak!- giving inspiring speeches, and watching a whole lot of American football in his spare time).

Fitzjames was a war hero, and proud of it. After Sir James Clark Ross had gotten hitched and taken himself off the market, Fitzjames was bumped up a notch and named the new Handsomest Man in the Navy by _Naval People_ magazine (the ultimate authority on the matter), thanks to his heroically square jaw and luxuriantly wavy dark hair, and he was proud of that one, too. He had only about four good stories to tell, and boy, he was prouder of retelling them than Disney’s live-action division.

Moira had hated him from the moment they met- not least because everyone gave him all the attention they used to give her. Sure, Fitzjames had been unfailingly nice to her at first- dropping his coat in puddles on the deck so Moira didn’t have to step in them in her custom-ordered Louboutin uniform boots, sending her flowers before they had ever left Greenhithe, leaving a surprise box of chocolates in her wardroom in _Terror_ the day they set off- but Moira wasn’t stupid. She’d seen _All About Eve_ enough times to know where _that_ was going. Besides, she wasn’t a gloxinia person anyway (though she did kind of like the red carnations and white violets) and the chocolates had had _way_ too much nougat (not that that stopped her from eating them all).

“Ugh,” Moira groaned as Deadly finished clasping a pearl bracelet onto her delicate, lilac-gloved wrist. “What do you bet he’s gonna tell us that story about the Chinese sniper again?”

“Three to one aren’t very interesting odds,” Deadly drawled, sounding bored at the very prospect. “You know, he does have a rather high opinion of himself for a man who still wears...”

Moira leaned forward in antici... pation.

“ _Monogrammed boots_!” Deadly howled, his sinister chuckling bursting into a well-honed maniacal laugh. Moira laughed uproariously too, tossing her long golden hair back from her face. Even Gloria Estefan the penguin got a few little hoots in.

“Right? What year does he think this is, 1842? _So_ passè-”

After a long moment of this, both Moira and Deadly were left gasping for air and feeling rather silly, though in the best and most slumber-party of ways. Moira turned to look at herself in the mirror and took in all of the familiar details- her big china-blue eyes, her luxuriant lashes, her perfectly rounded snout and pert ears. Deadly approvingly set her peaked cap on one of those ears at a jaunty angle.

“Well?” said Moira. “How do I look?”

“ _Lethal_ ,” said Deadly.

***

The wardroom on HMS _Terror_ was separated from the common area shared by the able-bodied seamen and petty officers by a single sliding door, but it might as well have been as far away from them as England itself was from the way the officers kept to their own place. Still, it was hard for some of the lower-ranking members of the crew to keep themselves from looking at it with a very different kind of hunger than the one their cheap cafeteria meals were supposed to satisfy- like Disneyland guests looking at the Club 33 entrance.

One young man in particular was moodily transfixed by the sight of the Erebite officers coming down the tight spiraling staircase for their dinner with Captain Crozier. There was Sir Sam Eagle, the periwinkle, paternalistic commander of the whole expedition, stern and glowering under the brim of his cap as ever, followed by First Lieutenant Johnny Fiama and the ever-present ship’s monkey, Sal Minella. After them came Second Lieutenant Fozzie Bear, who waggled his ears in greeting after removing his cap to greet Rowlf, _Terror_ ’s resident dog, and then Captain Crozier’s personal pain in the neck himself, Commander Fitzjames. Fitzjames bent down to give Rowlf an appreciative scritch behind the ear.

“Hello, Rowlf,” he could be heard saying faintly. But the young man watching was less concerned with what Fitzjames was saying than he was with the gleam coming from the gold buttons and epaulettes that gleamed on Fitzjames’s coat, or the recently-styled wave of his hair as he tossed it back from his curiously rectangular face to look up at Sir Sam again. It wasn’t really anything about Fitzjames in particular- it was _all_ of the officers, and their secret world beyond the slatted door of the wardroom. None of them seemed to even know what hunger or exhaustion even _were_ \- and _they_ certainly wouldn’t be eating stale knock-off Uncrustables with a side of Capri Sun for dinner tonight.

No sooner had the lean-and-hungry onlooker- a pointy-faced fellow with long gingery hair and a beard to match, which somehow managed to hide his mouth despite not being a particularly _big_ beard- been bitterly reminded of the half-frozen PB&J in his hands versus whatever fancy eats the officers would be enjoying did he feel someone trying to pull it away from him.

“Hey- hey, you’ve already had yours,” he snapped at the ravenous rodent who had climbed across the table to try to purloin his PB&J. “Bugger off!”

“Well, _excuuuuse_ me, Mr. Hickey,” said Rizzo, one of the ship’s rats, drawing himself up to his diminutive full height in offense. “You were kind of zoning out there for a moment, so I thought it’d be finders keepers.”

Mr. Hickey’s mustache curved up into a smile as lean and pointy as the rest of his face. He tended to when he was upset, which meant that his crewmates didn’t notice it easily when he was- and that was just how he liked it.

“What rank do you think that dog is, boys?” Hickey mused as he leaned his elbows forward onto the table.

“Ugh, _porque_ the doggie business again, huh?” groaned Pepe, a six-armed king prawn of Spanish extraction who had joined the expedition mostly to carry stories back to his warm-water relatives. “We are doing this every week, okay? He goes up on the decks, so that makes him a part of the watching. _Boom_! Haha!”

“Oh yeah? Well, explain this, mister smarty-prawn,” Rizzo retorted. “Does that make him an AB or a marine?”

“He can’t be a marine,” groaned Thog, a blue behemoth who took up so much of the table that Rizzo and Pepe only fit at all considering they were each only about a foot tall. “Marines wear _red_.”

“And he sleeps back in officer’s country some nights,” Hickey added. “What kind of arrangement is that, do you think? Puttin’ a dog above a man?”

“Or us rats, for that matter-” Rizzo began, but something behind Mr. Hickey’s shoulder made him suddenly clam up and shrink down in his seat.

Hickey looked from Thog’s saucer-wide (not a metaphor, in this case) eyes to Rizzo and Pepe’s guilty looks and adopted the most charming and affable smile in his repertoire as he turned around to see the cause.

“Why, Rowlf,” he said, positively beaming. “Hello.”

“I heard you fellas talking over here,” said Rowlf, “so I thought I’d clear it up for you. I’m the ship’s financial clerk. Anyway, enjoy your dinner!”

Hickey stared at him as he strolled back toward the wardroom and shut the door.

***

“The brigades already ashore were catching every kind of fire, so I was bringing out the Congreve rockets. Ironic, considering it was the Chinese themselves who had pioneered the things. We shot the marksmen down off the city walls, and we started up.”

Moira stared into the depths of her half-finished Cosmo and tried to think of being anywhere but here, in the wardroom, packed around a double-stuffed table when she’d rather be wolfing down a pack of Double Stuft Oreos, and listening to James Fitzjames tell the same story she’d already heard a million times already. At this point, Moira was pretty sure she could do a better telling than he could, and _he_ was the one who’d lived through it.

“As I climbed the ladder,” Fitzjames was saying, “I was thinking of...”  
“Oh, here we go,” Moira muttered, and she drank.

“Caesar crossing the Rubicon,” said Fitzjames, in a slightly louder voice, glancing at Moira from across the table.

The worst part was being the only one who seemed to even mind. Almost everybody else was laughing politely at the right moments- even her own lieutenants Scooter, Bean Bunny and Janice- and even the few who weren’t seemed to be completely checked out of having to listen to it. Gonzo, the fuzzy, blue ice master of unknown species on _Terror_ , was surreptitiously playing his Atari Portable under the edge of the table, and Sir Sam Eagle was merely frowning obliviously and chewing in silence. Dr. Stanley, from _Erebus_ , sat with his arms crossed, stony-faced as an older brother at a One Direction concert.

“We reached the top, and I saw the city of Chingkiang laid out before us, wavering in the morning heat,” Fitzjames continued, “and the soldiers in the alleys below started using their matchlocks on us, those muskets for which you must carry a lit taper at all times.”

“Running with fire?” Gonzo cut in, his interest suddenly piqued. “Cool!”

Fitzjames beamed and threw a friendly finger-gun down the table at Gonzo, which made Moira hold up her empty glass to summon Deadly to replace it with a new freshly-shaken Cosmo.

“Cool indeed, Mr. Gonzo,” Fitzjames agreed, “save that in such dry conditions, when we’d shoot one of them, they would fall down on top of these tapers, and they would catch fire like tinder piles. Soon, the whole city was dotted with these lone columns of personal smoke, and the whole view smelled of roast por-.”

Fitzjames briefly met Moira’s eyes and cleared his throat. “Er, roast duck.”

As an uneasy chuckle spread through the rest of the room, Moira’s mouth opened to give Fitzjames a piece of her mind, but Deadly came to the rescue just in time, swapping her empty Cosmo for a new one.

“Don’t be foolish, Moira,” Deadly murmured in her ear. “It might have been an accident.”

Moira really doubted that one, but she sipped in silence and wondered how easy it would be to bribe someone on _Erebus_ to glue Fitzjames’s mouth shut. Maybe they could force-feed him an Uncrustable from the general crew menu.

“And then we rushed down into the streets to assist the 49th, which we could hear was under attack. We came upon a group of Chinese soldiers behind a street barricade, and I’d just loaded a rocket and aimed when I was pierced.”

Fitzjames held his hand out in the approximate shape of the “okay” emoji.

“Single musket ball. Size of a cherry. Passed clean through my arm, and kept on in, making a third wound here, entering my chest.” He tapped the spot where it had gone in.

“Like the shot that killed Lord Nelson at Trafalgar?” Scooter gasped.

Fitzjames booped Scooter affectionately in the shoulder. “Yes, and had it not used up most of its energy on my arm, I might have ended same as he. It was our own Doctor Stanley who dug the bullet out-”

Stanley smiled tensely and waved it off.

“-and within five weeks I was up and about with my arm in a sling, smiling for the official portrait.”

Fitzjames pointed proudly at the wall behind his head and gave a thumbs-up. Within the portrait itself- a cramped bunch of sailors all standing together around a desk- a tiny image of Fitzjames (recognizable even at this scale thanks to his long face and even longer, shiny dark hair) could be made out, also beaming and giving a thumbs-up.

Moira set down her glass with a thump and made a mental note to deal with whoever thought it would be funny to hang that there later.

“Oh! Oh! I’ve got one!”

Everyone- Fitzjames included- turned to look at her, surprised by this sudden interruption from their previously silent hostess.

“Why don’t you tell us your little story about Guano Island, hmm, James?” Moira wheedled. “I heard that one’s _great_.”

It was as though Moira had broken some kind of spell. All eyes were suddenly on her, Gonzo’s particular look of astonishment accompanied by a soft murmur of “oh, _snap_!”, while Sir Sam slowly lowered his spoon to throw Moira an even sterner than usual look of disapproval.

Across the table, James Fitzjames raised first his eyebrows and then his sizable chin in offense, meeting Moira’s eyes as calmly as possible. Moira fluttered hers away and primly sipped her Cosmo.

Something made a delicate jingling soundthat thankfully ended this most cringeworthy of impasses between second and spare. Moira remained sullenly oblivious, but most of the rest of the gang, including Sir Sam and James Fitzjames, looked around for its source.

At the end of the table, Lieutenant Fozzie was beaming broadly and holding up something long, thin, and gleaming silvery in the thin Arctic sun coming in from the illuminators mounted in the ceiling above.

“Wow, I thought that was just a figure of speech! Hey, everyone- why did the sword swallower go to the sewing store to buy pins and needles?”

“Duh, that’s a trick question,” said Janice, a lovely blonde lieutenant who had chosen to augment her uniform with an anchor-patterned head scarf- _totally_ nautical. “You, like, _just_ said he went to buy pins and needles?”

“Because he was on a diet!”

James Fitzjames burst into undignified laughter. No one else did. Fozzie took the compliment where he could get it and bowed in place.

“Thank you! Thank you!”

Sir Sam cleared his throat, which had the immediate effect of restoring order in the wardroom. Fitzjames turned back to face him expectantly, while Moira watched him blearily over the edge of her martini glass.

“Well, gentlemen,” said Sir Sam, “I would like to make it known that I had a little chat with our esteemed ice master on _Erebus_ , Mr. Reid, today, and he has good news for us all.”

Gonzo- who was of course Reid’s counterpart on _Terror_ \- paused his game again and slid it under his seat, casting Moira a slight look of concern as he did so.

“And what would that news be, Sir Sam?” Fitzjames asked.

“No one likes a suckup, _Jaaames_ ,” Moira grumbled.

“Captain Crozier, _if you please_ ,” said Sir Sam.

“Fine,” Moira muttered.

“As I was saying,” Sir Sam continued, “it is Mr. Reid’s opinion that we are coming close to an intersection, and that our little summer strait is coming to an end!”

The lieutenants exchanged excited looks.

“Seeing as it has yet to be named, I was thinking that we might perhaps honor our good friend, Sir James Ross, in such a manner.”

Moira’s stomach did an awful, fluttering somersault- bad enough that she had to set her glass down and cough.

“Hear, hear,” said James Fitzjames, his glass lifted in a toast. “Would that he were here with us now, but for being a newlywed.”

He met Moira’s eyes across the table as he sipped his brandy.

Moira- eyes wide, lips pressed together to keep her from saying anything she’d regret- gripped the sides of her chair tightly enough that it began to creak.

“What do you say, Moira?” Sir Sam asked.

When Moira looked back at James Fitzjames, he was no longer watching her at all, but was fiddling with his napkin ring like one of those little Chinese finger traps.

_Fine. I’ll deal with him later. Then we’ll see who really calls the shots around here, buster!_

“Oh... oh. I suppose he’ll be very pleased,” said Moira, tossing her hair from her eyes and laughing meekly.

***

“Okay, so the dog’s a financial officer,” said Cornelius Hickey, rubbing his gingery beard thoughtfully. “Why do we need a financial officer in the Arctic, anyway?”

“Again you are bringing up the doggie?” Pepe groaned.

“That’s not the part I’m thinking of,” Hickey retorted delicately.

“Maybe it’s to bribe the pirates,” Rizzo suggested.

“The pirates didn’t give us any trouble,” Hickey sighed. “It was in the prologue, remember? Thog, you remember that part-”

But Thog wasn’t saying anything either way. In fact, his whole body was trembling- which was, in Thog’s case an awful lot of body.

“Hey. Hey, Thog, buddy, you okay there?” Rizzo asked.

Thog’s mouth opened and shut a few times before anything came out. And when something did:

“ _Oooooowieeeee!_ ”

***

A little while later, the three expedition leaders had gathered in Moira’s wardroom again to discuss the Case of the Bawling Blue Behemoth.

“You know what I think, Sir Sam,” said Moira, “and I know you know what I think, too. _And_ you’re thinking the same thing I’m thinking, but you don’t want me to think you’re thinking the same thing I’m thinking!”

“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” asked James Fitzjames, who was currently amusing himself with a glass of brandy and Moira’s Las Vegas-themed Monopoly board.

“I didn’t ask what _you’re_ thinking, _pretty boy_ ,” Moira snapped.

Fitzjames’s eyebrows lifted in soft astonishment.

“You think I’m-”

“We haven’t had any problems with the PB&J before now,” Sir Sam interrupted. “None of those men we lost back at Beechey Island were laid low by a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Perhaps this lad has a peanut allergy.”

“Pfft. You’d be amazed at what can knock you out in a place like this,” Moira said darkly.

“I don’t know why you’re not more confident,” said James Fitzjames. “We’ve all but found the passage in a year.”

“Oh, I’m confident, all right,” said Moira, “but being confident enough for thigh-high boots is a whole other kind of confident than what we’re dealing with out here!”

“I think that would be rather fetching on you,” said Fitzjames.

“Well, _excusez-moi,_ Mr. Never-Been-to-the-Arctic-before,”said Moira, “but just because I’m confident enough for a _statement lipstick_ doesn’t mean I have confidence that nature isn’t gonna screw us all up-”

Dr. Bunsen Honeydew of HMS _Terror_ stuck his round, green head through the door, with his assistant Beaker hanging around in the shadows just beyond.

“Sorry for the interruption, sirs- ma’am, you as well- but Thog’s been bundled up safely and given a lollipop for being such a good sport, and it is my professional opinion that he’s doing as well as he can.”

“Meep meep mo,” added Beaker.

“Have you figured out the trouble yet?” asked Sir Sam.

“Not yet, I’m afraid. One of his teeth cracked like a nut on Christmas morning,” said Dr. Honeydew, lowering his head in pity.

“Charming,” Fitzjames said dryly.

“Hm,” said Sir Sam. “I was unaware the boy had teeth to begin with. Never mind- James and I will take him with us, and let Dr. Goodfrog get a good look at him.”

“Meep meep moop!” Beaker objected.

“Beaker’s right- I’m not sure Thog’s ready to be rowed between the ships like that,” Dr. Honeydew protested.

“Nonsense,” said Sir Sam. “Moira, if you would be so kind as to get an additional boat ready?”

***

And so it came to pass that only a few minutes later, Moira stood at the edge of _Terror_ ’s railing, watching as poor Thog was loaded down into a boat to be transported to _Erebus_. (It was a delicate operation, considering he was nearly the size of a boat himself.)

The air was thin and icy as a Costco veggie freezer, even more than Moira had grown used to. She felt a distinctly metaphorical chill run down her spine as she looked out over the sea. In the distance, something that looked like a pair of golden retriever puppies scampered across the horizon, leaving two gleaming, refracted points of light on either side of the sun.

Moira gasped. Sundogs!

“Oh, I’ve got a _bad_ feeling about this. Sir Sam!”

Moira hurried from the railing, pushing a number of hapless sailors aside as she passed (“Out of my way, jerks!”) as she sought out the stately, stiff-necked expedition commander.

“Sir Sam, there’s something I’ve got to-”

“Oh, good, Moira, there was one more thing I wanted to mention before I go back to _Erebus_. Next time, I think the men might prefer a lighter vinaigrette to all the ranch you served up tonight-”

“Sir _Sam_ , I am trying to _tell you_ -”

“Now, now, Moira,” said Sir Sam as he passed. “I’m sure we can discuss it later.”

Moira was left alone, fuming. How dare he!

“Oh, I am _so_ telling the admiralty about this-”

“Telling them about what?” said a voice right behind her.

“Oh, what do _you_ want,” Moira groaned as she turned around to face James Fitzjames.

Fitzjames smiled at her, and Moira had to restrain herself from karate-chopping him in the face right then and there to knock some sense into him.

“I didn’t have a chance to give it to you at dinner,” he said, digging into his pocket, “but this is for you.”  
  
He pressed a little folded slip of paper into Moira’s hand. Moira considered crumpling it, but reflected that she could always save whatever it was to gather up her jalapeño pistachio shells for the trash later. She shoved it in her pocket.

“Good night, Moira,” said James Fitzjames. “Try to shake the brown study, hm?All is well.”

“What the heck does _that_ mean?” Moira asked bluntly.

Fitzjames nodded at her and turned back to join Sir Sam at the edge of the ship. If Sir Sam had been looking a little closer, he would have seen that smile fade from his third-in-command’s face- but, well, looking closely was a pretty hit-or-miss affair for Sir Sam (unless, of course, he were looking for signs of flagging propriety).

“There’s nothing worse than a pig who’s lost her joy,” Fitzjames grumbled. “She’s becoming insufferable. _And_ she’s a lushington, to boot.”

“Now, now, James,” Sir Sam chided him, with a firm but fatherly pat on the shoulder with the tip of one feathery hand. “We must be better friends to her.”

“Well, I can’t work out why she’s even here. You’d think someone who demands that much admiration would be at least a little cheered by the prospect of glory, but _none_ of it makes her happy. Not even the glory of a good pudding- and we’ve _all_ seen how she can put away a good pudding. It’s almost impressive, if you think about it-”

“True, true.”

But it doesn’t make her happy. I don’t think she’d ever let _anyone_ make her happy.”

“ _Commander Fitzjames,_ ” said Sir Sam.

“Or any _thing_ ,” Fitzjames said quickly. Hehunched his shoulders like an embarrassed child whose dad had just used his middle name in public, if that middle name was something like Reginald, and stole a glance back at where he had left Moira standing a moment earlier. Did he dare, perhaps, to think that she might have opened the slip of paper he had pressed into her dainty palm in its ever-present lilac glove?

Moira locked eyes with him from across the deck. She raised that delicate little hand, with two fingers spread to point at her eyes, and then turned it around again, this time pointing only one at him- the universal code for _I’m watching you, buster._ Fitzjames shuddered and turned away.

“I tell you, one glance from her and I have to remind myself I’m not a fraud.”

“You must not speak of Captain Crozier in such a way,” Sir Sam reminded him. “Remember, James- we arethe bearers of history. It is us to whom future generations shall look when they seek to find the true American spirit of-”

“British, sir.”

“Oh, right.” Sir Sam cleared his throat. “The true _British_ spirit of exploration.”

“Truly British.” Fitzjames nodded firmly, without meeting Sir Sam’s eyes.

“And thus, it is necessary that above all else, we meet all challenges, including amongst ourselves, with poise and dignity.” Sir Sam straightened up to his full (and still unimpressive) height for emphasis. “After all, were anything to happen to me, _you_ would become _Captain Crozier’s_ second! You should _cherish_ that pig, James.”

James Fitzjames looked back one last time in Moira’s direction, but all he saw now was the gorgeous waves of her honey-blonde hair bouncing gently as she stepped back inside. He watched her wistfully until she was out of sight and began to climb into the boat alongside his befeathered boss.

“Sometimes I think you love this crew more than God loves them, Sir Sam.”

“Don’t be _blasphemous_!” Sir Sam gasped.

“My apologies, sir.”

The boat began to lurch toward the ice-dotted water.

“I hope we won’t find Dr. Goodfraud- I mean, _Goodfrog_ too distracted, now that he’s a patient to look after,” said James Fitzjames.

“Is something troubling you today, my boy?” Sir Sam asked, peering at him suspiciously from under the brim of his bicorne hat.

“What? Hm, no. I’m just cold, I suppose.”

“That’s the third time today you’ve said something like that.”

“Like what?”

“Something about fraud.”

“Hm?” Fitzjames said innocently.

“It seems to be a recurring topic, is all.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Right. If you say so,” said Sir Sam.

“I do,” said James Fitzjames, “because if I didn’t, that would be a lie. And that would be a sort of fraud. Which I’m not. Obviously.”

“Hm.” But the proud eagle was already looking back toward _Erebus,_ and James Fitzjames released a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

***

A few hours later (following a relaxing home mani-pedi and a rosewater face mask), Moira was curled up in her bunk and leafing unhappily through her scrapbook, listening to her favorite showtime playlist.

The last thing she had added before setting off on this miserable misadventure was the playbill from a gala night in Covent Garden, shortly after she and Sir James Clark Ross had returned from the Antarctic- and what a night _that_ had been! It felt as though all of London society had turned out for it. If she closed her eyes and sniffed the paper, Moira could still smell the nachos she had been eating at that very performance...

_“Thank you! Once again, a round of applause for the incomparable Marvin Suggs and his Muppaphone!”_

_The audience clapped as the blue-skinned, samba-costumed performer gave one final bow and a pair of stagehands rolled the groaning balls of fluff that made up his instrument of choice offstage- all except for a pair of old men in one of the boxes overlooking the stage._

_“Do you ever wonder about the headache those little guys must have after doing that act?” one of them- jowly, with a perpetual scowl- asked._

_“It can’t be worse than the one I have after listening to it!” retorted his stooped, squinting, white-haired companion. Both of them burst into laughter, but it only barely registered to Moira Crozier. She leaned over to the other side of the box divider and nudged her friend Sophia in the shoulder._

_“Was that a little much for you? I was having trouble even following along.”_

_“Which part?” Sophia teased. “The fact that he played that song by hitting them with a mallet, or that the song was ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’?”_

_“Was it? I didn’t even notice,” Moira admitted._

_Sophia frowned. “Moira?”_

_“Oh- it’s... it’s nothing, I promise,” Moira assured her, with a weak laugh. “It’s just-”_

_“Ahem,” said a third voice._

_Just beyond where Sophia sat, her aunt- a magenta-faced society dame by the non-species-indicative married name of Lady Mildred Huxtetter Eagle- leaned across to give Moira a disapproving look. Between Sophia and Mildred sat Mildred’s husband and Sophia’s uncle, Sir Sam Eagle, who continued to stare expectantly at the stage. Sophia apologetically straightened her dress and turned away from Moira again, while Moira- her mood already tanked- drooped back into hers. Mildred was deeply concerned about Sophia’s standing in society and marriage prospects, and friendship with a naval pig whose career had stalled at captain even after all this time simply would not do._

_Little did Mildred realize that what Moira and Sophia had bonded over during Moira’s stay at the Eagle household in Tasmania was their shared crush on that hunky explorer and Moira’s colleague, Sir James Clark Ross, whose box Moira was currently sitting in- along with someone else Moira could not bring herself to think of even when she was sitting one seat away from her_. 

_“And now, in honor of Sir James Clark Ross’s recent voyage to Furthest South, we are pleased to present- ‘In the Navy’!”_

_As the house band struck up a groovy disco beat and the curtains swung open, Link Hogthrob, the biggest beefcake (or was that porkchop?) of the London stage strode forward on a recreation of_ Erebus _’s quarterdeck, kitted out in a red wig, uniform and bicorne hat to resemble Sir James and began singing. The real, considerably less porcine Sir James made a startled chuckling noise and nudged Moira in the arm._

_“What is it-”_

_“Oh, God, Moira, I’m so sorry,” laughed Sir James._

_Moira glanced down at the stage again and gasped. In addition to Link Hogthrob’s flattering impersonation of Sir James, there was another show pig joining in the number- a massive, bristly, wrinkle-nosed sow in unflattering blue eyeshadow and a too-tight pink uniform, whose own thin brown curls were escaping from under a cheap blonde wig._

_“Is- is that supposed to be_ moi _?” Moira sputtered._

_“If they believe that, you’ve dropped at least a stone since we’ve been back.”_

_“And gotten a facial-”_

_“And a few root touchups!”_

_At moments like these, Moira could almost believe that nothing had changed, but she knew she was kidding herself. As she sank weakly back into her chair, Sir James’s young wife, Lady Annie Sue, leaned around him and beamed at her._

_“Oh my gosh, Moira! It must be so exciting seeing someone play you onstage!”_

_With a shout of rage, Moira leapt up in her seat._

_“All right, that’s it- that’s right, stop the music! I’ve had enough of this nonsense!”_

_The actors and musicians were first merely a little distracted and then totally thrown off their game by the squealing pig in the second-tier box, and the musical number came to a screeching halt._

_“Er,” said the announcer. “Would you look at that- we happen to find up in the boxes tonight the_ real _Sir James Clark Ross_!”

_Desperate to keep the show running, Hogthrob bowed in the direction of their box to distract the audience, who were starstruck enough to begin applauding Sir James instead. Sir James stood up beside Moira, beaming, and waved down at their adoring public._

_“And don’t forget- the real Frances Pigathia Moira Crozier!” he announced, holding his hands up as though to show her off._

_Moira, fueled by spite and a need to prove herself to be the babe she knew she was, unlike that 2/10 they’d cast for the show, served looks with a vengeance. Across the tier, in another box, another uniform-bedecked naval officer- a certain someone with a long, square-jawed face and glossy dark hair- even stood to give her a standing ovation._

_“No wonder she’s upset,” said the white-haired man in the next box. “The one in the show doesn’t look anything like her!”_

_“Yeah, but she’s not doing much better herself.”_

_“What makes you say that?”_

_“She’s still an awful ham!”_

_As both men burst into uproarious laughter again, Lady Mildred nudged her husband in the wing._

_“Psst. You should stand up, too, dear.”_

_“Millie! Isn’t it bad enough that the entertainment was interrupted? Even if it was... hm. A little on the flashy side-”_

_But Mildred, not to be deterred, reached into her purse and pulled out one of her knitting needles. A quick jab to her husband’s feathery backside made him leap up in his seat- and the audience, recognizing Sir Sam Eagle, began to applaud for him too..._

Moira closed the scrapbook, staring bleakly ahead at the motivational poster of herself (“I Can Do It!”) she’d hung up on her cabin wall.

“Ruminating again, ma’am?” Deadly asked as he pushed the door open.

“Hey! I wasn’t ruminating-”

Deadly said nothing. He only pointed at Moira’s bright fuchsia Bluetooth speaker, which was currently blasting the sound of a chanteuse really giving it her all on “ _Touch me... it’s so easy to leave me... all alone with the memory of my days in the sun...”_

Moira shut the music off with a grimace. “Ugh, that’s _really_ on the nose. Hey, Deadly, do you think you could bring me a nightcap before I turn in?”  
“Do you really think that’s wise, ma’am?” Deadly asked. “At my last count, I prepared you no fewer than eight Cosmos since breakfast.”

“Aw, come on. You know how it is for us career girls. A Cosmo’s more like an accessory- like a pair of shoes, or a much younger boyfriend.”

“If you insist, ma’am,” Deadly sighed, and he left the room to make her another.

Despite this, Moira hunkered down deeper in bed. To think that only a few years ago, she had been so close to happiness! And now here she was, her spider-senses tingling ominously, thousands of miles from civilization, and forced every day to think of _Erebus_ , her beloved Sir James’s _Erebus_ , captained by a pompous windbag of an eagle and a stupid impostor James with a stupid repetitive name! 

“Has anyone ever suffered more than _moi_?” she asked the ceiling. 

Outside in the wardroom, Deadly sighed again and reminded himself of the exposure his clothing line, Uncle by Deadly, would get on their triumphant return to London. Some days, that was all that could keep him going.

And unbeknownst to either of them, but knownst to us, at that very moment, on _Erebus_ , that selfsame imposter James, stupid repetitive name and all, was himself preparing for bed in his cabin, taking one brief, yearning look at the picture of Frances Pigathia Moira Crozier he had clipped from a newspaper from the morning after that same night at the theater and slipped into the lid of his pocket watch, before snapping it shut again and rolling over to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I considered keeping all of the relationships (both textual and Heavily Vibed) as they are in the show proper, but I realized I felt weird about breaking up an F/F relationship between Moira and Sophia to go the Fitzier route with James Fitzjames, and ended up deciding to go with the fairly strong historical possibility that Crozier was in love with James Clark Ross (albeit much more obliviously than Moira is here). Miss Piggy allows me to backdoor in a lot of content the show couldn't, or didn't try to, get away with, regarding both that relationship and the nearly-canon Fitzier subtext running rampant through the show, with the bonus of getting to ramp up James Fitzjames's early woundedness that Crozier dislikes him into my favorite running joke from this franchise aside from Kermit's little smushface: human men finding Miss Piggy devastatingly attractive. (My one male roommate agrees, so I guess there's some truth in that.) 
> 
> All of the minor Muppets mentioned here- Delbert, Thog, Mildred Huxtetter, Marvin Suggs, etc- actually exist. You can look 'em up on the Muppet wiki. Moira's unflattering portrayer in the gala performance is Miss Poogy from the 2011 film.
> 
> Next up: Harry Goodfrog attempts to soothe a frantic Thog, Bobo the Bear is a pilgrim to the deep, and Moira freakin' TOLD YOU SO.


	2. Harry Goodfrog and the Sickbay of Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Goodfrog tends to a frantic Thog, Bobo the Bear is a pilgrim to the depths, and Moira suffers through a work meeting in the pre-Zoom background era.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something exciting happened right after I published the first chapter of this fic- namely, it [was praised by Erik Forrest Jackson](https://twitter.com/MrErikJackson/status/1247171173441560576?s=20), the author of the actual Muppets Meet the Classics books, which I guess means it now has actual critical acclaim to put on the cover:

PART TWO:

** HARRY GOODFROG AND THE SICKBAY OF SECRETS **

While the officers were retiring for the evening and the marines and ABs rotated their watches for the night, Thog was sitting on the floor of _Erebus_ ’s sickbay. (He was too big to sit on the usual examining table.)

What had started as a normal medical examination had turned into a cross-examination at the hands of Dr. Stephen Stanley, whom the attentive reader might remember as the glowering bullet-digger from Fitzjames’s story in the previous chapter (it’s all right if you don’t- _you’ve_ only heard Fitzjames’s Chinese sniper story _once_!) and the ship’s surgeon, a meek young naturalist- that’s a sort of all-purpose nature nerd- by the name of Harry Goodfrog.

In those days, a surgeon and a doctor were very different things. You would go to a doctor if you needed something that could knock you out enough that you could ignore that something was hurting, or to strap a piece of wood to your broken arm and hope that would help it heal. You would go to a surgeon if you needed something cut off of you (including hair, though they had stewards for that on _Erebus_ ) or pulled out of you (including teeth), or an autopsy if none of the above worked. Doctors in general believed themselves to be above having to cut anything open- from their point of view, _all_ surgery was meatball surgery- and Dr. Stanley was no exception to that. He never missed the opportunity to refer to his closest cohort on the ship as _Mister_ Goodfrog.

But as for Harry Goodfrog himself, he didn’t mind much. Between his childlike wonder at the natural world, good nature, and his impressive mop of curly dark hair (with muttonchops to match), he lived up to both parts of his name.

“What I fail to understand,” said Dr. Stanley as he lifted a small lantern, “is why you chose not to speak up when you began feeling this take root. Wide.”

Thog opened his cavernous mouth enough for Stanley to lean in and take a look with the help of the lantern.

“I’ve been eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all my life,” Thog protested once Stanley was out of the way. “How was I supposed to know this one would give me any trouble?”

“Crew’s under strictest orders to come forward if unwell,” said Dr. Stanley. “I would think burying three of your mates at Beechey after that freak accident with the tennis racket would have been sufficient motivation.”

Harry Goodfrog shook his head sympathetically. “I’ll never think of a tennis racket the same way again.”

“I didn’t want to disappoint Sir Sam!”

“Well, he can praise your loyalty as he buries you. Mr. Goodfrog?”

Harry Goodfrog froze in the middle of organizing various jars of tongue depressors.

“Yes, Dr. Stanley?”

“See to it that the boy’s comfortable. I will be retiring for the night.”

Goodfrog grimaced. “Oh. Yes, Dr. Stanley, sir.”

Goodfrog returned alone a few minutes later, straining to drag something very large and off-white behind him. It was an unused sail- they didn’t have any blankets big enough to cover Thog on their own.

Thog rolled over unhappily and tried to relax. In the next room, someone pounded the wall angrily at the sound of the creaking floorboards this created.

“I don’t want you to do to me what you did to Tom Hartnell’s brother,” he moaned.

Harry Goodfrog hesitated.

“Er... well, Thog, it’s for the good of the crew. I know that’s hard to hear, believe me. I’m a frog- my brothers and I were the first ones in our family to end up in science class in front of a tray, not on one. But we needed to be _sure_ it was the tennis racket and not the scurvy that killed John Hartnell.”

“Can’t you leave me in one piece?” Thog pleaded. 

“If Sir Sam tells me I have to, I’m gonna have to,” Goodfrog said sadly. “You may be a warning of things to come.”

Thog met Goodfrog’s bulgy amphibian eyes with his big sad ones and promptly began to cry. Goodfrog gasped and quickly tried to stop him before his sobbing shook the whole ship.

“Thog- Thog, please listen to me! If Sir Sam says I have to, I will- but only if I _have_ to, okay? Oh... oh, sheesh, Thog, please...”

“QUIET DOWN THERE!” someone shouted down the hall.

Goodfrog winced. “Uh... Thog,” he began. “Did you know that sometimes when people are near... er... passing-”

Thog wailed. Goodfrog waved his little hands frantically.

“ _I heard they speak of a radiance like a million daybreaks at once!_ ” Goodfrog blurted.

Thog finally seemed to catch his breath. Goodfrog swallowed hard, and continued, “And their loved ones are there to welcome them over to the, er... other side.”

“I grew up in St. Lulu’s Orphanage for Abandoned Creatures,” said Thog. “I never knew my mom or dad.”

Goodfrog’s grimace grew until his whole face seemed to have folded in on itself.

“Then... I guess there’ll be angels, Thog. With songs lovelier then you’ve ever heard.”

“Lovelier than that one by Enya that goes ‘ _who can say where the road goes, where the day flows, only_ -’”

Someone pounded on the floor from below this time. 

“I’m working on it!” Goodfrog howled in frustration. He realized that his glasses had fogged up and took them off to polish them while taking a deep breath, before turning back to Thog. “Yes, Thog. Even lovelier then that.”

“Oh,” said Thog. “I like Enya. Mr. Goodfrog?”

“Yes, Thog?”

“Will I fly? Up to God?”

Goodfrog nodded. “Though hopefully not for a long time. You just have a cracked tooth for now.”

“Then why on earth were you telling me about passing, and the angels?”

“Oh,” said Goodfrog. “I guess I could stand to work on my bedside manner.”

***

Sir Sam, meanwhile, was sitting up at his desk in _Erebus’_ s wardroom doing crossword puzzles when James Fitzjames emerged from his cabin in a nightshirt and dressing gown.

“Don’t mind me,” he said. “I’m just here for a drink of water.”

“Hm,” said Sir Sam.

“Has Captain Crozier sent any word, sir?”

“What sort of word?”

Fitzjames hesitated. “About anything, really.”

“Hm. Not that I know of. James, would you happen to recall a four-letter word for a pillowcase?”

“Not off the top of my head, I’m afraid.”

There was a tap at the door. Sir Sam called for the visitor to come in while Fitzjames pulled his robe a little tighter around himself and retreated into a corner. In strode Lt. Graham Gore, a well-liked young officer, with a concerned look on his face.

“Sir, I’ve just been speaking to Mr. Reid, and we can’t spin the propeller nor retract it. He’s certain we must have caught a growler at the surface.”

Sir Sam hmmed pensively.

“So. You’re telling me it’s blocked?”

“Yes, sir. Mr. Clifford thinks there must be ice wedged up in the prop well, though he- I quote- says we ought to ‘chill out about it’ until first light.”

Fitzjames stifled a laugh. Sir Sam glanced back at him, and he looked away.

“He did say that if we can clear out the jam, we can, er... keep jamming along, was his phrasing, sir,” continued Lt. Gore.

“Good. I think that’s all for now, then, Graham, since we don’t appear to be sinking. Wake me if- and only if- that happens.”

He returned to his crossword puzzle, leaving Lt. Gore standing there at a bit of an impasse. He looked helplessly at Commander Fitzjames, who still stood awkwardly half-shadowed and holding his robe around himself in a desperate attempt to not be seen by a subordinate in such an embarrassing position. Fitzjames pointed away from himself and at a poster on the wall that depicted a struggling kitten clinging to a tightrope and the words _Hang in there, baby!._

Realizing that there was no further progress to be made, Lt. Gore turned and stepped out. James Fitzjames sighed in relief and went to the water pitcher.

“Wait- I’ve got it,” said Sir Sam.

“Got what?” said Fitzjames from behind his water glass.

“I’ve figured it out!” said Sam. “I can’t believe it took this long- the signs were there all around...”  
“Sir?” Fitzjames said faintly.

Sir Sam turned in his seat and jabbed a feather at Fitzjames.

“ _Sham_!” he crowed triumphantly. (It’s a little-known fact that eagles can crow, though crows can’t eagle.)

James Fitzjames dropped the glass and straightened up defensively, robe or no robe.

“That’s- don’t be ridiculous. You can’t tell anything- can you? You’ve no proof-”

“You see?” Sam held up the crossword. “A four-letter word for pillowcase is a _sham_.”

James Fitzjames stared at him for a moment, tense as an overstretched Slinky, before finally realizing what was happening. His shoulders drooped back into their usual posture, and he laughed tiredly.

“Oh... yes, of course. One of those... fancy pillowcases. Of course.” He cleared his throat. “Well, I’ll... I suppose you can have Beauregard come in for the glass. Terribly sorry, sir. I’ll just... er... be going back to bed then.”

He backed away and into his cabin, shutting the door as quickly as possible. Sir Sam hmmed to himself and shook his head. He was fond of Fitzjames, no mistake- but sometimes the younger officer struck him as a bit _weird_.

***

The ABs, Marines and petty officers of both _Terror_ and _Erebus_ slept in shifts, in hammocks that they hung from the rafters of the lower decks every night. Cornelius Hickey was a respectable five foot six, but the hammock Janice had given him on the day he arrived on _Terror_ was more of a respectable two feet long. After a few extremely unpleasant nights of trying to, in the words of the great philosopher Tim Gunn, make it work after they set out, he had gotten used to sleeping on the floor in a corner instead, using his personal roll as a pillow. Had he known about scout badges, Hickey probably would have demanded one.

There was no sleep to be had on _Terror_ tonight, though- not even by Hickey’s low standards. 

“Are you guys hearing that?” Pepe hissed in the darkness. “It sounds like a coyote whose favorite program was just canceled.”

“Oh, sure, in the middle of the Arctic?” Rizzo retorted. “I don’t think so.”

Pepe rubbed his chin with his nearest hand. “Maybe it is the echolocation system for the Santa’s workshop, okay?”

“Oh, come on. Like Santa’d set up anything that- brrr!- spooky-”

“Have you ever been seeing the Santa, eh?” said Pepe. “Maybe the old guy with the beard is just what he is _wanting_ you to think. Maybe the Santa is some kind of, you know, unknowable horror, okay?”

“Maybe the both of you are thicker’n custard,” Hickey grumbled. He sat up, wincing against how tight his back felt, and pulled himself up to retrieve his boots from his hopelessly undersized hammock.

Pepe gasped.

“What are you doing, Mr. Hinckley?”

“What do you think, shrimp? I’m going to go figure out what’s making that bloody awful sound.”

“Hey, wait a minute- can you even say ‘bloody’?” Rizzo asked. “Where does the rating system fall on English swears versus American swears around here?”

Pepe bolted upright.

“First of all, Mr. Hinckley, I am not a shrimp. I am a king prawn, okay? And two of all- you are already owing the many, many duties. If that little bunny sees you doing the creep around the ship, you will be up the creek with no paddle, okay?”

“And then _we’ll_ get in trouble for not stopping you,” Rizzo added. “I ain’t a part of this, and you can’t make me.”

“Fine,” said Hickey. “Suppose I find something fierce out there, take it down myself? I guess that means I’ll be the one getting all the appreciation from Captain for looking into the matter, since watch ain’t doing anything about it.”

Rizzo and Pepe exchanged looks, and then resolutely flopped back down in their hammocks.

“Sounds good to me!” said Rizzo. “Night-night.”

“Good luck with the not being murdered, Mr. Hinckley, okay?”

Hickey ignored them and pulled on his coat. Truth be told, he didn’t expect to have to deal with anything himself, but if he happened to find any officers on duty, it couldn’t hurt for them to know he was looking out for the whole crew. If he didn’t have to share the glory with a rat or a prawn, that was that much more praise for _him_.

As he crept up the stairs to the next deck, the curtain on one of the stewards’ bunks fluttered. Hickey stopped and held his breath, eyes wide in the dark. The curtain slid open, and a very narrow face topped with a nest of curly lamb’s-wool hair (not literally, in this case) poked out.

“Mmf,” he said. “Not tonight, Cornelius.”

Hickey rolled his eyes. “I do have other hobbies around here, Billy. No offense to yourself, of course. Do you hear that howling?”

It was impossible not to. But if Billy Gibson, steward to Lt. Bean, had perfected anything on this voyage so far, it was managing to look wearily deadpan at most things. It came naturally when one had to buttle for a bunny.

“Probably just the wind. Go back to bed before you get yourself a thrashing.”

“Oh, don’t threaten me with a good time,” Hickey retorted cheerfully as he pulled himself up and started toward the uppermost deck. 

The sky rippled electric green with the aurora borealis, casting an eerie light over the deck.. The Marines, and whoever else was on watch, were nowhere to be seen. The sound of the howling was even more intense out here, and Hickey shuddered despite himself. He was suddenly very aware of having come unarmed and marked that as another complaint against the officers in his mental diary. 

Perhaps he would only need to see what was going on, and rush down to wake Captain Crozier...

Hickey walked slowly toward the bow of the ship. Something shaggy and hunched was crouched just before the bowsprit, and Hickey realized he no longer felt like being brave for love or money as it straightened up, tilted its head back, and...

“ _Awoooooo!_ ”

The aurora glinted off the shiny nose and gilded buttons of Rowlf, the ship’s financial officer and man’s best friend. He sniffed the air and turned his floppy-eared head to look at Hickey.

“Well, hey there! Didn’t realize I’d have company this watch. You know, I didn’t catch your name earlier.”

“...Cornelius Hickey, sir,” said Hickey, that thin, thwarted smile stealing across his pointy face. “Caulker’s mate.”

“Sorry for the ruckus,” Rowlf said agreeably. “There’s just something in the air tonight that’s sending a real shiver up my spine. You know, the kind of thing that means you gotta- _awoooooooo!”_

“Can’t say I do know it, sir,” said Hickey.

“Oh, right,” said Rowlf. “I forgot- rats don’t understand these things.”

Hickey’s smile tightened. “Right.”

“Well, don’t let me keep you from getting comfortab-”

Rowlf stopped short and sniffed the air. Hickey took a step backward.

“Something funny’s going on tonight, Mr. Hickey. Not like, funny ha-ha, but funny-”

Rowlf threw his head back and howled like his life depended on it- but this time, he kept on howling. It was as though _something else_ had taken over, and it wasn’t really Rowlf howling at all. Hickey scurried back from him and tried to remember where the ship’s alarm bell was located, duty owing for being away from his post or not, as Rowlf kept howling into the flashing green sky...

***

Thog’s tossing and turning was making it a rough night for everyone on _Erebus,_ too _._ Harry Goodfrog couldn’t help but wonder how anybody on _Terror_ ever managed to get a decent night’s sleep with him aboard. At least, as a frog, he had no trouble hopping back into his bunk every time he fell out. He had finally managed to bundle himself up in one corner when the groaning began in the sickbay again.

“Good grief,” Goodfrog muttered. 

“No,” Thog muttered in the next room. “No, no...”

“Thog?” Goodfrog sat up in bed. “Thog, are you awake in there?”

“No, no...”

“‘No’ as in you’re not awake, or ‘no’ as in- hey, wait a second-”

Harry Goodfrog untangled himself from his sheets, put on his custom-shaped spectacles, and hopped down from his bunk. All the while, Thog had begun protesting louder and louder.

“Thog- oh, no! _Thog!_ ”

By the time Harry Goodfrog made it into the sickbay, Thog was sitting up and pointing into an empty corner of the room, his eyes huge even by Thog standards.

“Thog! What’s the matter-”

“He’s telling us to _get the heck out of here_!” Thog wailed.

“Who is? Thog, there’s nobody there-”

“No! No!”

Harry Goodfrog took a deep breath and launched himself at Thog’s face, intent on delivering him a firm but fair wakeup smack to end this most literal of waking nightmares.

“Come on, Thog, this isn’t real! None of this is real, buddy! You’re gonna be okay once you snap out of-”

But before Harry Goodfrog could even deliver the blow, Thog suddenly straightened up, dropped his arm, and flopped sideways, his eyes closed. Goodfrog hit the floor with a bump and sat up, rubbing a painful new knot on his head.

“Thog...?”

Goodfrog lifted one of the big blue guy’s eyelids without trouble. The eye that looked back at him was glazed and unseeing. 

“Oh, no,” Goodfrog said. “Oh, no, no, no- aw, sheesh. I didn’t think this adaptation would stay _this_ gritty.”

With a heavy heart and an uneasy look back to that same empty corner of the room, Harry Goodfrog went to go tell Dr. Stanley the bad news.

***

“ _Awwoooo-_ oh, man. Sorry about that.”

Hickey, who had pressed himself against one of the masts on _Terror_ in a state to match, frowned as Rowlf stood back up and dusted off his coat.

“Sorry you had to see that, Mr. Hickey. I don’t know what came over me back there!”

“You weren’t doing it on purpose?” Hickey asked. 

“Can’t say I was,” said Rowlf. “Oh, well. It’s the call of the wild, as they say.”

“Mr. Hickey!” another voice cut in.

Hickey groaned as a pair of Marines came running up onto deck, accompanied by the very small, very cute- one might even say _aggressively_ cute- Lt. Bean Bunny. Bean hopped ahead of them, leaving absolutely darling little toe prints in the frost on the deck and making the fuzzy bauble on the end of his nightcap bounce.

“Sorry this took me so long, fellas, but I had to get some help getting out of bed from Billy Gibson,” said Bean. “It’s a long way down in the dark for a little guy like me. Is everything okay out here?”

“I’m all right now, sir,” said Rowlf. “I think it must’ve just been some of those old wolf urges coming back.”

“I didn’t think you _had_ watch right now, Mr. Hickey,” said Bean, poking Hickey in the shin for good measure. (That was, after all, as high as he could reach.)

“I don’t, sir,” said Hickey, “but I heard Rowlf’s distress and- not realizing that it was Rowlf- I went to go investigate.”

Bean tutted, with an adorable little frown. “Now, Mr. Hickey. You know the rules about being out of bed when you’re not supposed to.”

“There was no one else coming-”

“That’s going to be another day of duty owing, Mr. Hickey,” said Bean. “You really need to get better at listening!”

“ _Sir_ -”

“No buts, mister! Off to bed with you.”

Hickey closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, he was smiling.

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

Head held high, smile firm, Cornelius Hickey headed back down to his useless hammock and bedroll. If Billy Gibson had been awake enough to help Bean out of bed, he gave no sign of it now, and Hickey restrained himself from making matters worse by striking the curtain as he went by. By the time he made it back down to the general quarters, Rizzo and Pepe were waiting for him.

“Uh-oh,” said Pepe. “It looks like someone has once again been busted by the bunny!”

“Come off it,” Hickey grumbled. As he lay back down in his cramped corner, he closed his eyes and thought of gold uniform buttons and china plates piled with food. 

This time, he didn’t smile.

***

“Dr. Stanley?” 

When Harry Goodfrog pushed the door open, Dr. Stanley was sitting up in bed with a large pile of comics in front of him. The one in his hand was a Fantastic Four issue, with a coverline promising _This time, there’s NO escaping the Human Torch!_

“What is it, Mr. Goodfrog?” Stanley sighed.

“It’s Thog, sir. He’s...”

Goodfrog lowered his head. “Well, he’s passed, sir.”

“As if that weren’t plain. Cover him and get some rest, Mr. Goodfrog.”

“I don’t know if I can do that after what happened tonight,” Goodfrog admitted. “It got a little... er... _creepy_ in the end.”

“Creepy how?” Stanley’s usual frown deepened.

“He was pointing at the corner, sir. I think he saw something that I couldn’t.”

“That’s what we in the business usually call a hallucination, Mr. Goodfrog.”

Harry Goodfrog stiffened himself up. “Now- now see here, Dr. Stanley. Thog wasn’t feverish, and I think his eyes were working just fine. And I think whatever he saw... well, it scared him to death!”

Stanley lowered his comic book.

“Is that what you think?”

“I just said that’s what I think!”

“Do you want to know what I think?”

Harry Goodfrog’s shoulders- such as he had them- drooped.

“I think you’re probably going to tell me whether I want it or not.”

“I think you should get some sleep. You’ll need to do the post-mortem in the morning, when the men go up.”

“Is that really necessary?” Goodfrog asked, grimacing.

“Sir Sam’s got a feather in his brain about scurvy. He’ll ask.”

“Oh,” said Goodfrog. “Good grief.”

Dr. Stanley picked up his comic book again. “Good night, Mr. Goodfrog.”

“Okay,” Harry Goodfrog said dejectedly. “Good night, Dr. Stanley.

As Goodfrog left the doctor’s cabin, he could hear Stanley chuckle to himself and muse aloud, “Oh, Johnny. Only you could have a date interrupted by _mole people_!”

***

“Well, anyway,” Moira Crozier said the following morning as she slid down from her vanity table, “thanks, Deadly. If you need me, I’ll be in the great cabin, brooding as usual. Do you think you could hit me with a Cosmo while you’re at it?”

“It’s eight in the morning, madame,” Deadly reminded her.

Moira stared at him.

“A Bloody Mary, then-”

“How about I make you a caramel frappè-”

“A _boozy_ frappè?” Moira wheedled.

“Just a normal, ordinary caramel frappè,” said Deadly, “and perhaps an appearance above deck to keep morale above sea level.”

“Ugh,” said Moira.

“You know, Madame, I hate to speak out of my place, but at moments like these I feel as though it is only prudent for you to recall that you were the one who asked to be the captain of _Terror_ on this voyage. Had the admiralty had their way, you would still be sunning yourself in Naples.”

As he began scooping ice chips into the blender Deadly muttered to himself, “And I would have scored on Italian Tinder by now.”

“Oh, Deadly,” Moira sighed. “Sweet, naive little Deadly. I know that it is probably very hard for you to understand the life of a-”

Deadly started the blender. Moira groaned and crossed her arms as she waited for it to finish.

“-a _lonely sea captain_ , but this is our lot in life- to face the world alone and left behind by those on shore...”

She pressed the back of her wrist to her forehead for emphasis.

“Anyway, it isn’t like _I_ like it either. I think those hair and skin vitamins you’ve got me on have got me looking _dynamite_ , and when I stay inside nobody else can bask in how good I look! But you must realize how it is for someone like me. The grief in my heart must be borne alone.”

“You _asked_ to be here,” Deadly reminded her again. “This would probably be Commander Fitzjames’s-”

“Ugh.”

“-vessel, had you not dragged us both back from our Italian holiday, bellowing about how this is _your_ ship.”

“I do not bellow!” Moira bellowed.

She sullenly dropped herself into the nearest chair and crossed her arms, nose turned away from him.

“Moira,” Deadly sighed.

Moira held out her hand without looking at him. “Frap me.”

There came a tap at the doorway, followed by the sound of someone coming in without waiting to be invited. 

“ _What_!” Moira snapped, turning in her seat. She relaxed (though not as much as Deadly did) at the realization that the arrival was none other than Gonzo, the ice master on _Terror_. 

“Oh, hey, Gonzo,” said Moira. “As you can see, you caught me at a _very_ busy time, so I might have to give you a rain check-”

“Sorry, Moira, but I didn’t come to hang out,” said Gonzo. “There’s some bad vibes going on with the ice out there this morning.”

Moira frowned.

“You remember how Rowlf was howling up a storm last night?” Gonzo asked.

“...no?” said Moira.

“Between her earplugs, noise-canceling machine, and aromatherapy humidifier, we’re lucky she’s awake before noon,” Deadly cut in dryly, ignoring the warning look Moira shot him in response.

“Well, _I_ heard it,” Gonzo retorted, “and “I couldn’t get to sleep again afterward. So I made myself an espresso and went out on deck myself to practice my world-famous sail trapeze act, and that’s when I saw it!”

Gonzo spread his furry blue arms wide for emphasis.

“...saw what,” said Moira.

“There’s pack ice ahead!” Gonzo said. “An endless labyrinth of chilly horror, waiting to devour us all!”

“Well, you certainly sound concerned by it,” Deadly said flatly.

“Hey, listen- I’m an artist. I’ll take the dramatic effect where I can.” Gonzo cleared his throat and spread his arms again. “ _Doom_!”

There was a little battle going on in Moira’s head at that moment, between the desire to hole up and do nothing and the desire to show that not only was she without doubt the hottest officer on this voyage, she was the most experienced. Sir Sam had been to the Arctic before, but it had been what later historians would term an epic fail. Sir Sam had come out of it with a reputation for having had to boil and eat his own boots to survive out there at all, which ruffled the proud eagle’s feathers every time he was reminded of it. Moira, on the other hand, had successful runs to both poles under her rhinestone-studded belt, and James Fitzjames had never been to either one of them before now. By rights, this should have been _her_ expedition, but the Admiralty always had convenient excuses to drag their feet on promoting her. Sir Sam was high-class and titled, and not a typical part of a balanced breakfast. James Fitzjames seemed to have sprung out of nowhere, and Moira didn’t care enough about him to look into his life before she had to deal with his stupid face, but he had that stuck-up accent, and it was all too easy to imagine him as somebody’s rich half-wit younger son, going off to sea out of boredom and saying “I say” too much and calling everyone “old bean”.

Moira was middle-class, which was English for “basically poor”, and Irish to boot. Her parents had simply run out of cash to keep feeding the number of piglets they kept squeezing out, and it was kinder to send her to the navy at a young age than a bacon factory. It had crushed Moira’s dreams of being the most celebrated beauty of the London stage, the most popular influencer on Instagram and the author of Britain’s best-selling cookbook- but she was a tough cookie, and she’d made it this far. And now, whether the Admiralty believed in her or not... here was her chance to show everyone that she was smarter, more experienced, and all-around _better_ (to say nothing of better-looking) than all of them combined! Here she was, boys! Here she was, world! 

“Anybody know if those losers on _Erebus_ know what’s up?” she asked.

“Mm, not that I know of,” said Gonzo. “They were having some propeller trouble last night, I heard, but I’m not sure. One of my contact lenses fell overboard last night while I was pulling off a leap from the crow’s nest, so I might have read the flags wrong.”

“Hm. Fine,” said Moira. “If Sir Sam doesn’t get us all together to talk about this, I’ll have to do it myself!”

***

At around the same time on _Erebus_ , Sir Sam had decided to turn their propeller trouble into a morale-boosting event for the crew by gathering everyone on deck to witness a dive down to fix it. The lucky spelunker (not quite the right word, but who can say no to a little alliteration?) was Second Master Bobo, a burly bear made even burlier by the heavy diving suit he was currently being fastened into.

“And you, Bobo my lad- you are on the brink of surpassing us all!” Sir Sam said, with a firm pat on the bear’s heavyset shoulder. “You shall be the first to witness such sights as you are about to see- why, not even the native people of this region have done such a thing!”

“My cousin Ivan’s a polar bear,” Bobo said modestly. “He does this kind of thing all the time.”

Sir Sam opened his beak and shut it again. He looked back at James Fitzjames, who shrugged.

“...right,” said Sir Sam. “Regardless, if you manage to move that ice out of the way, you’ll be the toast of the whole expedition-”

“Shouldn’t there be... you know, a doctor around here?” Bobo asked anxiously.

“They’re a little busy at the moment,” said Sam. “You remember the signals we talked about, don’t you?”

“One tug if it’s slack,” said Bobo. “Two tugs if there’s a little bend in the hose, uh, or something, and three means pull me up.”

“Excellent, Mr. Bobo. You shall be a pilgrim to the depths, not unlike those brave pilgrims who cast aside British tyranny and-”

James Fitzjames tapped him on the shoulder and whispered something in his ear.

“Oh, right.” Sir Sam muttered.

Fitzjames nodded succinctly and took a step back again as Sam cleared his throat.

“Well. Anyhow- we shall look forward to hearing about the whole thing when you come back up.”

“Uh, yes, sir,” said Bobo. “And, uh, fellas, if you could make sure I don’t get any water in my suit?”

Bobo sat his considerable bulk down on a seat suspended between two ropes, a little like a swing at a playground, that moved out over the water. He tried kicking his legs and going “ _wheee”,_ but the thought of all his Navy buddies watching on the deck made a flush pass over his cheeks (not that it would have shown, considering a) diving helmet b) he was a bear), and with that, he stopped.

The seat began to lower towards the surface of the water, which was thickly dotted with big, flat circles of ice like half-spent bath bombs. As he passed the window of the next deck, he could see something small and green moving around next to something big and blue.

“Oh- hi, Mr. Goodfrog!”

But the helmet muffled his voice, too.

Bobo plunged into the water. Beneath the surface, everything was blue and silver. When he looked down, there was no bottom- only darkness.

“Oh,” Bobo said to himself. “Oh, that’s... different. Okay! Well, um, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m just going to swim right over to the propeller and pretend everything is just fine, and that this isn’t the spookiest place I’ve ever been...”

When he pushed himself off of the seat, he didn’t plummet like he feared. Bobo only drifted a few feet downward and easily pushed himself back up with his arms, with the help of the harness still tied around his burly shoulders.

“Oh- well, go figure. This isn’t as bad as I thought.”

His spirits lifted, Bobo pushed himself toward the propeller. Sure enough, there was a chunk of ice wedged in there, like gum in the space between a high school locker and the wall. Bobo hummed to himself and jabbed at the ice with his harpoonuntil it crumbled and began floating to the surface.

“Whoo-hoo!” said Bobo, throwing both paws up in the air in triumph. “Mission accomplished!”

Bobo pushed himself away from the edge of the ship, chuckling a congratulation to himself under his breath. He drifted slowly to face the other way, taking one last view of the water... the underside of the ice... the...

...the eerie figure floating toward him from a distance...

Bobo’s eyes widened and he jerked frantically on the air hose.

“Pull me up! Pull me up!”

The thing drifted forward, but all Bobo could make out as he was hauled back up was one tusklike protuberance curving downward from its bulgy-eyed head, and another sticking straight up...

***

Bobo hit the deck with a wet thump, tugging futilely at his helmet.

“Help! Help! Get this thing off of me!”

He tumbled forward and gasped in a mouthful of that sweet, cold Arctic air as James Fitzjames stepped forward and extended a hand to help him up. Bobo gathered himself to his feet, shivering, and looked between Fitzjames’s mild smile and Sir Sam’s... well, Sir Sam was smiling as much as he could.

“Welcome back, lad!” said Sir Sam.

Bobo rubbed the back of his neck and quickly decided to stick to the parts that didn’t sound completely Looney Tunes, but before he could get anything out, Fitzjames shoved a mug of espresso toward his mouth.

“Oh, that’s not- oh, okay-”

“Chef made it himself this morning. He called it- what was it, Sir Sam?”

“The...” Sir Sam sighed and covered his face as though embarrassed. “He called it a _Kaffeenfloofen_ , whatever _that_ is.”

“Uh, well, the propeller’s bent, but I got the ice out,” Bobo mumbled between gulps. “It should work again, I think. Say, that’s good _Kaffeenfloofen.”_

“Is there anything else to report?” Fitzjames asked.

“...nope,” Bobo said, avoiding looking at him.

“Excellent work, Mr. Bobo,” said Sir Sam. “Graham?”

Lt. Gore stepped forward with a nod.

“Let the engineers know and signal _Terror_. Have Captain Crozier bring her lieutenants over. We need to have a little talk about the ice ahead.”

“Yes, sir,” said Gore.

Sir Sam tucked his arms behind his back and puffed up his chest as he turned back to Bobo.

“Hmm! You have made us all proud today, young man. I have long dreamed of moving below myself.”

“That’s ominously specific,” said Bobo.

“Never you mind that,” said Sir Sam. “Go and get yourself dry for the-”

Someone on the other side of the bow screamed, and both Bobo and Sam whipped around just in time to see one gangly, furry blue arm reach over the side of the ship... and another... 

...until Ice Master Gonzo of HMS _Terror_ pulled himself over the side and collapsed on deck, spitting out his snorkel in the process.

“Hey, guys!”

He pushed himself up on one arm and waved weakly.

“Sorry about that, Bobo. I was looking for my contact lens,” he gasped before collapsing forward, right onto his long blue schnozzola. “Didn’t find it. Anyway, Moira wanted me to come get you guys for a meeting.”

“I’ve just called one myself,” Sir Sam shot back. “I’ll see you in the wardroom in an hour, Mr. Gonzo- and for heaven’s sake, get a shirt on.”

***

Within that same hour, Frances Pigathia Moira Crozier was seated at the table in _Erebus_ ’s wardroom, drumming her fingers impatiently as she waited for the others to filter in.

“Hello, Moira,” James Fitzjames said from across the table.

“I can’t even try to hold a meeting without somebody on _this_ ship deciding _their_ meeting idea was better,” Moira grumbled.

“How were things last night after we parted?”

“Oh, you know, the usual,” she said sweetly. “A little me time, a little music, trying to forget _you_ exist-”

Sal Minella, the ship’s resident monkey, bounded through the doorway.

“Great news, everybody! We checked the icebox, and we still had one more tray of Mama Fiama’s world-famous tiramisu for this here business meetin’! Come on, Johnny, bring it on home!”

“That’s right- tiramisu and rainbow cookies courtesy of my dear old ma,” said Johnny Fiama, first lieutenant on _Erebus_ and another one of Fitzjames’s old war buddies. “They’ve been frozen the whole time we’ve been out here! Still smell pretty good, too.”

A general excited chatter broke out as the tiramisu was divvied up around the table. Fitzjames was offered a slice (“Ay! Jimmy!”) but turned it down, as he was still nursing a _Kaffeenfloofen_ of his own. Moira started on hers with a dull-eyed stare into the middle distance as Gonzo- in an oversized Hawaiian shirt he’d borrowed from Lt. Fozzie, looking particularly fluffy after toweling off from his dive- sat beside her. Not even a tiramisu could fight off the foreboding she was currently feeling. (Neither did the second one she started on a moment later.)

Sir Sam finally entered and lowered himself into the chair at the head of the table.

“Ahem. All right, everyone, settle down. We have business to attend too.”

“Wait, Sir Sam, before we start, I have a joke,” Lt. Fozzie volunteered. “What do you call a fake noodle?”

James Fitzjames coughed loudly.

“An _impasta_!” Fozzie crowed. “Get it?”

“Perhaps we ought to start with the meeting,” said James Fitzjames.

“Indeed. Thank you, James,” said Sir Sam. “The news is in about _Erebus_ , gentlemen. While she can still make headway under steam, the flagship’s efficiency has been compromised.”

Moira frowned and pulled another unclaimed slice of tiramisu toward herself without looking at it.

“Now, when you _say_ compromised, how compromised are we talking?” she asked.

“She can still pull two knots, maybe three, with the boiler full up,” said Mr. Reid, Gonzo’s counterpart on _Erebus._ “That’s about half power.”

“And on top of that,” Sir Sam continued, “we’re staring down some very, _very_ thick ice up ahead. But once we get ahead to King William Land, we’ll only have another... hmmm. 200 miles or so to go before we will have the great honor of filling in the formerly uncharted maps of this region once and for all!”

“Hear, hear,” said James Fitzjames, with a toast from his _Kaffeenfloofen_.

Moira set down her fork so slowly, and with such a deliberate clink as it hit her china dish, still half-full of tiramisu, that the temperature in the room seemed to drop. Fozzie swallowed hard and looked away, and Johnny Fiama shoved two rainbow cookies in his mouth at once so his jaw couldn’t fall open again. Even on _Erebus_ , the lieutenants knew that only the most serious of business could keep Frances Pigathia Moira Crozier from dessert.

“Uh oh,” said Bean Bunny, from his booster seat by the window.

Moira cleared her throat delicately and tossed a loose curl of honey-blonde hair from her eyes.

“That would be very nice indeed,” she said, “but unfortunately, Sam: it’s not gonna be that easy.”

“Dramatic opening shot,” James Fitzjames said dryly.

“No, no,” said Sir Sam. “Let her speak.”

Moira pushed her plate away. Sal Minella audibly shuddered.

“Okay, so, here’s the thing. That ice you’ve been looking at? That’s not regular ice, that’s _pack ice_. Even if everything goes great, it’s the _molasses_ of ice- and you want us to just try to sail through it? In _September_? I have to laugh.” She did, just to prove her point. “That would take weeks! I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we don’t _have_ weeks-”

“What, weeks at most?” said James Fitzjames, with a shrug.

“Have _any_ of you dunderheads even looked at a thermometer lately? It’s already colder than last year. I’ve had to start using my battery-powered slippers from Brookstones just to keep my toes from freezing at night!”

“Moira,” said Sir Sam, “I’ll remind you I’ve been to the Arctic myself-”

“Captain who nearly starved to death and lost part of his crew says what?” Moira muttered.

“What?” said Sir Sam.

“No offense,” Moira said, with her most charming smile.

“For God’s sake, Moira,” James Fitzjames groaned.

“No, I... walked into that one,” Sir Sam admitted, covering his face.

“Yeah, that’s how you almost died out here the last time, too,” said Moira.

“So, are you suggesting we wait out winter here?” Sir Sam asked, his frown deepening.

“Heck no! We don’t even know if King William Land _is_ a land- it might even be an island, and we could sail around it.” 

She yanked Sir Sam’s map over and traced her finger over the path she was indicating, leaving a small smear of chocolate from Mama Fiama’s rainbow cookies on the paper. 

“That seems like an awful lot of miles,” Sir Sam grumbled. “Why, that might take us until Spring-” 

“Only because you messed up James’s ship- and I don’t mean _you_ , so keep it zipped, Rectangle Face,” she added, jabbing a chocolate-stained fingertip at James Fitzjames before he could open his mouth. “If we stuff our coal on _Terror_ , we can floor it around King William Land in time to see Santa Claus flying overhead from wherever he is out here. Heck, we might even be able to give him _extra_ coal on the way by. There’s an awful lot of naughty kids out there. That’s our only chance!”

“What she said,” said Gonzo. Moira pointed her thumb at him and nodded.

Sir Sam gasped and shrank away from her, one wing pressed to his chest in offense.

“Abandon _Erebus_?” Fitzjames cut in, leaning forward. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying! We can just park her over here, have ourselves a little winter campout, and then in spring you guys can all come back and get her. Do you really think I’d suggest _you_ losers come stay on _Terror_ without good reason? I don’t even like remembering _this one_ exists-”

“You already said that,” James Fitzjames sighed.

“And it gets truer _every_ time,” said Moira.

“Now, Moira,” said Sir Sam. “That’s an interesting idea, but you know we can’t just abandon one of our ships just because of a little damage- especially not when we’re so close-”

“Do you want to be part of the pack ice?” Moira demanded. “Because that! Is how! You end up! In pack ice! And then next thing you know, we’re being squished out on the far side of King William _Whatever_ -”

“And _not_ in the fun way,” added Gonzo.

“You know what they say about the Arctic?” said Moira. “Out here, _no one can hear you scream_.”

“Who’s ‘they’, Moira?” asked James Fitzjames. “Did they write those melodramas I read about you doing down south with-”

Moira screamed in indignation and pounded her fists on the table.

A few of the lieutenants scooted back in alarm. Sal Minella shielded himself with an empty plate, while Fozzie ducked under the table and promptly bonked his head on it anyway. 

When Moira, panting, tossed her hair back from her face, James Fitzjames was staring at her. She grimaced.

“You know who here’s been to the Arctic before? _Moi_. And also Sir Sam, Mr. Reid, and Mr. Gonzo, technically- but mostly _moi_.”

“Hey!”

“Okay, Gonzo, you count. Listen, Sam. You know I love drama. Drama is one of my favorite food groups, along with cake and tortilla chips that taste like things that aren’t tortilla chips. So when I am telling _vous_ that there’s no drama here, just live men or dead men, you better believe me that I know from drama-”

“Sounds pretty dramatic to me,” Johnny Fiama chuckled.

Moira dropped back into her seat as the other lieutenants laughed at his joke- and at her. She was already too tired to be angry again- and if she were honest with herself, too scared, though if anyone else had pointed that out, she would have socked them through the window. James Fitzjames wasn’t laughing- he was watching her curiously from across the table as he drank the last of his _Kaffeenfloofen_ \- but somehow that made it worse. Moira preferred to be pitied on her own schedule.

“Well, your enthusiasm is noted,” said Sir Sam, “and I will of course consider everything you’ve suggested.”

He furrowed his unibrow in thought.

“Consideration finished. We’re going to do the exact opposite of everything you said.”

Moira’s head thunked against the back of her chair and she slid down, groaning.

“Excuse me, sir,” a new voice cut in from the doorway, “but I’ve finished Thog’s autopsy, and I wanted to tell you the results.”

The officers glanced over to see Harry Goodfrog standing there. He swallowed hard as he looked around at them all.

“Um, hi-ho, everybody.”

“What would those results be, Mr. Goodfrog?” asked Sir Sam.

“Well, um... I didn’t see any scurvy, sir. I don’t know what it was that took Thog last night. The only thing that makes sense is if he were... well. Scared to death.”

The lieutenants gasped. Moira and Fitzjames frowned, looked at one another, realized they were looking at one another, and quickly looked away again.

“And what do you suppose scared him?” Sir Sam inquired.

“The truth is, I don’t know, sir,” said Harry Goodfrog.

“There’s nothing as scary as the unknown,” Scooter added sagely.

“Maybe you missed something,” said Sir Sam. “Perhaps you ought to open him up again.”

“I’d really prefer not to,” Goodfrog admitted with a grimace. “And I thought he smelled bad on the _outside_.”

Sir Sam sighed. “Very well. You are dismissed, Mr. Goodfrog. Moira, have your men-”

“And like, women, right?” Janice cut in.

“You know what I mean!” Sir Sam snapped. “It’s not _my_ fault that there were hardly any women in the source material. Have them bury Thog, and we’ll be on our way.” He shook his head, muttering “Political correctness gone mad, I tell you.”

“You’re in luck, Captain,” said Bean Bunny, hopping up from his seat by the window. “I’ve got a whole list of trouble-makers we can use for that! Mr. Hickey alone has got a pile of duty-owing-”

“Duty,” Lt. Fozzie snickered.

“-taller than I am.”

“That ain’t hard, shortstack,” cracked Johnny Fiama.

“Moira?” Sir Sam asked. “What say you?”

“Whatever,” Moira groused through a mouthful of tiramisu she’d swiped from in front of Gonzo.

“...right,” said Sir Sam. “Gentlemen-”

“And ladies,” said Janice.

“And ladies,” Sir Sam added stiffly.

“And like... people of alternate genders,” Janice added.

“Right, them too-”

“Though like... I do kind of have to question if it’s actually like, progressive at all to make these kinds of cast expansions?” Janice wondered out loud. “Like, this story is about the like, intrusion of white male hubris and like, _imperialism_ and stuff on an environment where that like... doesn’t matter, you know? So like, instead of preserving that commentary, is it rilly helping anybody to depict, you know, frogs and pigs and whatever Gonzo is as its agents? Or is it just like, you know, neoliberalism in action?”

The room fell silent. 

“That is the most syllables I have _ever_ heard you say at once,” said Johnny Fiama.

“Far out,” said Janice.

“ _Anyway_ ,” said Sir Sam, “it is my firm belief that we are at the gates of destiny. Now is our moment to stride through them to glory. I shall set a course south-southwest, and we will see the North American mainland within a fortnight.” He stood up and thumped his chest with one feathery fist. “We must now begin our last and best efforts to reach her, as we become the greatest Argonauts of our age!”

A few of the assembled officers cheered. Moira ate her tiramisu, mumbling under her breath. Sir Sam nodded and continued, clearly on a roll.

“We shall earn our loved ones’ cheers and embraces on our return! We need only to strike onwards, and we shall _surely_ succeed! And may God bless Ameri-”

“God save the Queen, sir,” said James Fitzjames in a low voice.

“And God save the Queen!” Sir Sam exclaimed.

And with that, he firmly tucked his hat under his arm and struck the most heroic, chest-thrust-out pose he could muster.

***

One week later, Sir Sam stood on the deck of _Erebus_ , peering over the edge at the solid plane of pack ice that had crawled up around the ship and pinned her in position.

“Hm,” said Sir Sam. “This is embarrassing.”

James Fitzjames lowered the spyglass he’d been using to look ahead and looked to Sir Sam instead, his face cautiously still, with Lieutenants Fozzie and Fiama and Sal Minella the ship’s monkey standing anxiously behind him

“You don’t, er, happen to see an end to this when you look through there, do you?”

“No, sir,” said Fitzjames, who seemed to be having trouble looking at Sir Sam at all.

“Hmm,” said Sir Sam. “Well- _ahem_ \- I suppose we ought to lift our anchors and, er. Tucking in for the winter. James, if you would be so kind as to mark our position-”

“I would,” said Fitzjames, “if the compass weren’t doing _this_.”

He pointed down into the fancy wooden box that held the ship’s navigational compass, which was currently spinning faster than the teacups at Disneyland.

“...oh,” Sir Sam said faintly. “Well. Best not to alarm the men, then.”

“But sir,” Fozzie said plaintively. “ _We’re_ the men.”

“Yeah," said Johnny Fiama. “And I don’t know about you, but _I’m_ feeling pretty alarmed right now.”

“Nonsense,” said Sir Sam. “What did we sign up for, if not adventure?”

“The advance pay,” said Sal.

Sir Sam humphed to himself and strode back to the stern, the new snow crunching under his claws in their knee-high boots as he went. In the near distance, _Terror_ , too, was locked in the ice.

Both ships were trapped- as trapped as dinosaurs in a tar pit. As shoes in cement. As an aspiring serious actor in an MCU contract. Sam could just make out Frances Pigathia Moira Crozier standing at the bow of _Terror_ , unmistakeable in her bright magenta uniform and holding something in each hand. Sam squinted to make it out.

Moira raised her arms and revealed a pair of semaphore flags. She held the starting position for just a moment, and then, with crisp, aggressive movements, spelled out seven furious letters:

_T-O-L-D-Y-O-U._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While Piggy isn't exactly known for being the most practical and well-advised member of any group, she has been before, in both the Three Little Pigs segment of "Muppet Classic Theater" (where she's the brick-building pig) and on a few (though definitely not all) of the Pigs in Space sketches from the original show, so it's not entirely OOC. I like to think that in whatever world the Muppets really did star in an adaptation of "The Terror", the meta-interviews would have a lot of "so, after years of playing First Mate Piggy, how is it to be the captain?" type content.
> 
> Next up: schmoozing and boozing.


End file.
